Your child may turn out transgendered, schizophrenic, disabled. This beautiful book shows the capacity of parental love

In the first, remarkable chapter of this transforming book the author, Andrew
Solomon, talks about how his own childhood and adolescence brought it about.
He had realised that people have two broad identities. One, their vertical
identity, was that conferred by their parents and upbringing and might
consist of locality, religion and colour — all traits recognisable to their
fathers and mothers. The second, horizontal identity, however, would be
something belonging to them that their parents might never have dreamed of.

In Solomon’s case it was homosexuality. Loved though he was, the realisation
that their son was gay was a puzzle